The Material Culture Studies Program and Art History Department will be hosting an interdisciplinary conference in March 2019 on the various ways in which graduate students at UW-Madison engage material culture in their research and practice. We invite graduate and doctoral students from across all of the university’s programs to submit an abstract. This conference will provide an opportunity to both share on-going research and foster a sense of academic community. The conference will be located on UW’s campus, and participation is free.

Abstracts should be submitted via email to Jared L. Schmidt (jschmidt29@wisc.edu), the conference organizer, by December 15, 2018. Please see the call for proposals for further details.

The Material Culture Studies Program and the Department of Art History invite you to submit proposals and attend a free one-day interdisciplinary graduate student conference focusing on how material culture is engaged across the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

UW-Madison currently offers 154 Master’s, 4 MFA, and 109 Doctoral programs, many of which interact with the study of material culture in their own distinct theoretical and methodological approaches. The goal of this conference is two-fold: 1) To share new scholarship with peers from across multiple disciplines as it relates to material culture; 2) foster a sense of academic community through shared interests in material culture methods across a wide and diverse range of disciplines and approaches.

Abstracts are due via e-mail on Sunday, December 16, 2018, and should be sent to Jared Schmidt at: jschmidt29@wisc.edu. Please include your title, 200-word abstract, your preferred name, your departmental affiliation, and contact information as a PDF. The abstract should explicitly address the ways your paper engages with material culture methods, broadly defined. Notice of acceptance will be sent Sunday, January 13, 2019.

Panels will be formed by a committee of material culture studies faculty and students at UW-Madison, each scheduled to last one hour and forty-five minutes. Each panelist should prepare to deliver presentations of no more than twenty minutes in length. Panels will consist of three individual presenters, permitting for approximately thirty to forty-five minutes dedicated to discussion. Organized panels are encouraged but not necessary. For individuals proposing an organized panel only one submission is required and should be submitted by the panel’s chair. Please include all information listed above for each participant, as well as a 200 word abstract for the panel and title.